ABSTRACT
In the winter campaign in Sussex and Hampshire, Lord Hopton’s uninspired generalship had resulted in the death or capture of about 2,000 troops, mostly infantry, the military resource the king could least afford to lose. Surprisingly he was not dismissed, but on 1st February Prince Maurice was promoted over his head as lieutenant-general of the southern counties from Cornwall to Kent, with the same sweeping powers as those enjoyed by the Marquis of Newcastle in the north of England. This is almost certainly proof that Sir Samuel Luke’s spies in Oxford had heard correctly when they reported that the king’s council of war intended the two corps of the Western army to unite to undertake operations in the southeast of England in the spring. But Parliament was quicker off the mark. Its strategy for the southern theatre of war was for Essex, supported by city trained bands and a corps of the Eastern Association army, to relieve Gloucester and to keep the king’s army on the defensive in the Thames valley and the Chilterns while Sir William Waller reconquered the west of England. On 4th March, orders were given for Waller to push westwards with an army of 5,000 foot and 3,500 horse and dragoons. The lord general was not yet ready to take the field, but over a third of the cavalry and one of the dragoon regiments assigned to the western expedition were from his army and commanded by his lieutenant-general, Sir William Balfour. The task of threatening Oxford, and thus deterring the king from sending forces to assist Hopton, therefore fell to the corps of the Eastern Association army under Oliver Cromwell, which had been overwintering in Bedfordshire and north Buckinghamshire. This is a useful reminder that the principal strategic function of that army other than defending the association itself was to act as a strategic reserve. Although its victories beginning with Grantham and ending with Marston Moor all took place in the north of England, throughout 1643, 1644 and the first four months of 1645 troops from the Eastern Association were used as often in the south of England as they were in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. 1
